I’d never heard of The Fun and Games before looking up this bubblegum pop song.

Amazingly there were six members of the band (and none of them were cartoons).

The band members and name were constantly in flux and they released only one album, Elephant Candy in 1968.

“Elephant Candy” is a two and a half minute pop delight.

The main music of this song sounds almost like the music of a merry-go-round–a kind of sugar-coated pipe organ.

The song opens with the preposterously catchy “elephant elephant candy did you know that elephants can be fun eating candy on the run.” The second go-round features backing vocals of a steady “Ahhahahh” that sounds simultaneously unsettling and catchy: kind of like a fun house mirror.

The verse seems like its just an opportunity to pause in between the next appearance of the chorus.

If that weren’t catchy enough, the song moves up a step so it’s even more treacly. Somehow, the song even has time for two keyboard solos.

[READ: June 1, 2020] Bubblegum Week 4

Over at the Infinite Zombies site, there was talk of doing a Quarantine book read. After debating a few books, we decided to write about a new book, not a book that everyone (or some people) had read already. This new book would be Bubblegum by Adam Levin. Many of us had read Levin’s massive The Instructions which was not especially challenging, although it was a complex meta-fictional story of books within books. It was kind of disturbing, but also rather funny and very entertaining.

So I’ll be posting weekly ideas on this schedule

Date

Through Page

May 11

81

May 18

176

May 25

282

June 1

377

June 8

476

June 15

583

June 22

660

June 29

767

Sometimes One Looks Like The Other, Bad Taste and Stupidity

This weeks reading was really intense. It also showed things that I never imagined would come up.

A lengthy and carefully edited suicide note.

A lengthy treatise on transgendered persons/prostitution/homosexuality

Academic papers that are simultaneously well-written and yet obviously the work of a child.

Part Two, Section 5 of the book is called “Letters and Facts.”

This was an interesting place to stop/resume reading because, although they reference the same incident, the beginning of this section differs from the end of the previous section. (more…)

The name Ohio Express sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember why. Turns out that they did “Yummy Yummy Yummy” (which I could have put here, but “Chewy Chewy” seems more bubblegum-apt).

What I was fascinated to discover though, was that (according to Wikipwdia)

“Ohio Express” served as a brand name used by Jerry Kasenetz’s and Jeffry Katz’s Super K Productions to release the music of a number of different musicians and acts. The best known songs of Ohio Express (including their best scoring single, “Yummy Yummy Yummy”) were actually the work of an assemblage of studio musicians working out of New York, including singer/songwriter Joey Levine.

Several other “Ohio Express” hits were the work of other, unrelated musical groups, including the Rare Breed, and an early incarnation of 10cc. In addition, a completely separate touring version of Ohio Express appeared at all live dates, and recorded some of the band’s album tracks.

So basicaslly, Ohio Express were like The Monkees, but without a cute public face.

In fact, if Wikipedia is to be believed, (and sure, why wouldn’t it), Ohio Express has a fascinatingly complex and questionable history. Almost worth a novel in itself.

This song opens with a high -pitched “doo doodoodoo do” as the main verse breezes along in quite a familiar bubblegum style. You can absolutely hear “Yummy Yummy Yummy” in the pedigree of this song.

It’s bouncy and catchy with the appropriate keyboard bops. The biggest surprise comes at a minute and forty five seconds when the song throws in, inexplicably, the guitar riff from “Then He Kissed Me” for two measures as a kind of instrumental break then returns to the main melody. This is no where near as catchy as “Yummy Yummy Yummy,” but it has its moments.

The album that this song comes from Chewy Chewy is remarkably annoying. It’s under 30 minutes but it is just full of “comic” bits. “Nothing Sweeter Than My Baby” opens with over 30 seconds (of a song that lasts 2:52) with one guy saying “Oh Bonnie” (or bunny) and the other guy in falsetto saying “Oh Clyde” over and over and over. I don’t even assume it was funny back then. “So Good So Fine” opens with a 30 second “skit” about Superman being stuck in a phone booth. The full song is 2:10 and has nothing to do with Superman, phone booths or anything of the sort.

“Yes Sir” opens with a person saying “Hi, I’m chicken little.” The angry reply is, “I don’t care who you are get your beak out of my popcorn.” What? The song is practically a children’s call and response song. “Little Girl” opens with a “dialogue” that includes a fairly lengthy backwards spoken section which is apparently the person talking? The hilarious punchline is that the person is from Poughkeepsie, New York. You know it’s funny because there is a silly fake cackle. The ensuing song is pretty catchy though. There’s even a pop version of “Simon Says.”

I guess writing pop hits isn’t as easy as it seems.

[READ: May 25, 2020] Bubblegum Week 3

Over at the Infinite Zombies site, there was talk of doing a Quarantine book read. After debating a few books, we decided to write about a new book, not a book that everyone (or some people) had read already. This new book would be Bubblegum by Adam Levin. Many of us had read Levin’s massive The Instructions which was not especially challenging, although it was a complex meta-fictional story of books within books. It was kind of disturbing, but also rather funny and very entertaining.

So I’ll be posting weekly ideas on this schedule

Date

Through Page

May 11

81

May 18

176

May 25

282

June 1

377

June 8

476

June 15

583

June 22

660

June 29

767

Lacing up my rhinestoned shirt in Vegas or: Finking wrecks fun

Part Two of the book is called The Hope of Rusting Swingsets

So if you thought the swing set murders were not going to be revisited, you’d have been wrong.

Part 2 Section 1 is called “Look at Your Mother.” It concerns Stevie Strumm.

Belt has had a crush on Stevie for a while. She’s the only girl that he can comfortably talk to. Stevie had once given him a mixtape because he liked her Cramps shirt. Stevie, the second youngest Strumm, invited Belt over to destroy their rusted swingset (number ten in his murderous spree). She was babysitting her younger sister while the rest of her family was at a G N’ R show.

The end of the second paragraph promises two events that we haven’t seen and may or may not. He has a vertiginous feeling that he will feel “while dressing at the foot of Grete the grad student’s bed and after reading No Please Don’t‘s first review.” (more…)

For all of the legendary status of John Prine, I don’t really know that much about him. I also think I don’t really know much of his music. I didn’t know any of the four songs he played here.

I enjoyed all four songs. The melodies were great, the lyrics were thoughtful and his voice, although wizened, convey the sentiments perfectly.

The blurb sums up things really well

An American treasure came to the Tiny Desk and even premiered a new song. John Prine is a truly legendary songwriter. For more than 45 years the 71-year-old artist has written some of the most powerful lyrics in the American music canon, including “Sam Stone,” “Angel From Montgomery,” “Hello In There” and countless others.

John Prine’s new songs are equally powerful and he opens this Tiny Desk concert with “Caravan of Fools,” a track he wrote with Pat McLaughlin and Dan Auerbach. Prine adds a disclaimer to the song saying, “any likeness to the current administration is purely accidental.”

I thought the song was great (albeit short) with these pointed lyrics:

The dark and distant drumming
The pounding of the hooves
The silence of everything that moves
Late in night you see them
Decked out in shiny jewels
The coming of the caravan of fools

That song, and his second tune, the sweet tearjerker “Summer’s End,” are from John Prine’s first album of new songs in 13 years, The Tree of Forgiveness.

He introduces this song by saying that. This one is a pretty song. It might drive you to tears. He wrote this with Pat McLaughlin. We usually write on Tuesdays in Nashville because that’s the day they serve meatloaf. I love meatloaf. We try to write a song before they serve the meatloaf. And then eat it and record it.

For this Tiny Desk Concert John Prine also reaches back to his great “kiss-off” song from 1991 [“an old song from the 90s (whoo)… a song from the school of kiss off 101”] called “All the Best,” and then plays “Souvenirs,” a song intended for his debut full-length but released the following year on his 1972 album Diamonds in the Rough. It’s just one of the many sentimental ballads Prine has gifted us.

He says he wrote it in 1968…when he was about 3.

Over the years, his voice has become gruffer and deeper, due in part to his battle with squamous cell cancer on the right side of his neck, all of which makes this song about memories slipping by feel all the more powerful and sad.

“Broken hearts and dirty windows
Make life difficult to see
That’s why last night and this mornin’
Always look the same to me
I hate reading old love letters
For they always bring me tears
I can’t forgive the way they rob me
Of my sweetheart’s souvenirs”

The musicians include John Prine, Jason Wilber, David Jacques and Kenneth Blevins.

[READ: December 11, 2017] X

I really enjoyed Klosterman’s last essay book, although I found pretty much every section was a little too long. So this book, which is a collection of essays is perfect because the pieces have already been edited for length.

I wasn’t even aware of this book when my brother-in-law Ben sent it to me with a comment about how much he enjoyed the Nickelback essay.

Because I had been reading Grantland and a few other sources, I have actually read a number of these pieces already, but most of them were far off enough that I enjoyed reading them again.

This book is primarily a look at popular culture. But narrowly defined by sports and music (and some movies). I have never read any of Klosterman’s fiction, but I love his entertainment essays. (more…)

This is the full 36 song version audience recording of the CBC Hot Ticket Show. The radio version was truncated (and sounds great). But this version sounds quite good as well. Notes:

“Song Of Flight” has been duplicated in 2 channels so doesn’t sound particularly good but the rest of the show sounds fine. A bit of chatter from time to time from people near the recorder. The 11 minute “Dope Fiends” in particular is pretty awesome.

This is the show they mentioned they’d be playing after their return from England (no recordings from England). This show is also nearly 3 hours and 36 songs.

There’s also a video of the show (below) which has a different audio. It is so interesting to finally see them playing these songs–I had many visual revelations watching this after seeing and imagining these shows for so long).

“Song of Flight” does sound crazy echoey. The video version’s audio is clean. I love watching Martin playing the great soaring notes and Dave playing the chords. The sound cleans up nicely for “California Dreamline.” I never knew Dave played the high notes during the verse or the wild notes during “disillusioned porpoise.” It’s also amazing how bouncy and animated Dave is.

“Soul Glue” sounds good. In the introduction to “Michael Jackson,” after Martin plays the “Sweet Child O’ Mine” riff, Dave says “Thank you Saul.” On the audio version, you can hear someone in the crowd ask, What did he say? A guy explains the premise of the song but misses the Slash joke. The end of the song (just the voices) is really long and sounds great. I see it’s just Tim and Martin.

Tim apologies for the show starting half an hour late, but they suggest it was a bonus half hour for “conversations and such.”

Then Dave says, “people talk about us having three record out but no we have 4.” He mentions Greatest Hits and someone shouts Wendell Clark. He hears it as “Do you miss Wendell? Sure.” Then Martin says, “he’s fishtailin. That’s a segue.” “Me and Stupid” is fast and rocking.

Dave introduces “Tim Mech our road manager who did the “Legal Age Life” guitar solo. He says Tim drove 16 hours consecutive from Thunder Bay to Toronto to get us back to our families and our pets and our loved ones. Then he drove to Washington DC for Danny Gatton’s funeral (a musician I don’t know).

Clark makes a segue that a van is like a car, you scratch your arm and you go like this…. Cough cough. You go like this…. (supposed to be a segue for Martin to start “Torque Torque.” He missed it. For this song Bidini is on bass, Tim is on acoustic guitar, Martin on a big old-fashioned guitar. After the song, he says, “Say goodbye to that guitar,” and switches back to his Steinberger.

Dave asks, “You remember the knob who played air drums at our last concert…here he is.” This is an introduction to “Mike” who is not seen.

It’s the same instrument configuration for “Introducing Happiness.”

Then there’s a discussion of Martin getting athlete’s foot in Cork—it was the highlight of our trip to Cork.

Martin has some trouble with his acoustic guitar and his shirt. He tells about Oprah Winfrey interviewing a guy who gaff taped everything in his house. His wife was so embarrassed. Clark, in watching Martin’s shirt get fixed with tape says, “For those of you who want to know the secret of life by a roll of gaff tape–it’ll fix your car, your clothes, your guitar.

I was intrigued to see that the fun parts of “In This Town” were played by Dave, while Martin plays acoustic.

For “Take Me In Your Hand,” Tim goes to the drums and Clark comes up front. He dances a little jig and sings harmony. Bidini plays bass.

When you see what the gaff tape has done to his shirt Bidini says, “Martin has affected an exclamation mark on his thing. “The first time Rheostatics played at The Edge in 1980, I went to Albion Mall and got them to press on an exclamation mark on a red shirt and my dad bought me blue velvety pants. I looked like a clown, but an excited clown!” He thanks Martin for recalling that evening. He says “Everything old is new wave again…except Canadian folk rock.”

Martin makes up a song “Everything old is new wave again.” They play around it a few times and then he says, “Okay, it’s not that funny.”

For “King of the Past,” Dave is on acoustic guitar while Tim plays the opening high notes on his bass. Martin plays the great opening effects.

When they play “Queer,” there’s no ending section because it segues right into “Full Moon Over Russia,” which has Dave and Martin talking to each other with their guitars (vocals and guitar playing the same note) “You seem very confused!” “What?!”

Tim grabs the accordion, Dave is on bass for “What’s Going On.” Martin has a little lyric problem, but when Clark asks if he’s starting again, he just presses on. Towards the end, there’s a cool jam with Dave on bass an Martin on guitar facing each other and challenging each other to play better. It’s pretty great.

This is probably my favorite version of “Row.” As the song heads to the end, there’s a lengthy drum part that builds and builds. It nearly takes over the song. Martin starts playing louder and louder and the whole time, Tim maintains his consistent playing. It hits an amazing climax. It’s a bit too loud in the recording but must have been very cool live.

I never realized that Tim played acoustic guitar and Dave played bass on “Claire.” The band jams with Martin making interesting sounds. They play Monstrous Hummingbirds which segues into “One More Colour” and then, half a dozen songs later, they finish up “Queer.” So cool.

“Dope Fiends” runs nearly 11 minutes long and is pretty fantastic. In the middle there’s even a didgeridoo (the video confirms that it is!). They thank the didgeridoo player but I can’t hear his name. Martin is making whale sounds on the guitar, there’s a lengthy drum solo and more of Martin’s guitar solo. And even after a quick return to the song before the ending, Tim starts funking it up and Martin gets a little more wailing in. It’s one of the most unusual jams the band has done.

When that ends, one of them says “We scheduled 20 songs and figured we’d be done by 12: 30 and we’re now an hour and a half ahead of schedule. [How?] So we’ll play one more, take a 5 minute break so people can stretch their feet and have a smoke and then we’ll play a second set. But they waste no time getting to that smoke with a blistering “R.D.A.”

They come back from the break and “Digital Beach” opens slowly (Martin has a new shirt and an acoustic guitar). It segues into a rocking “Self Serve Gas Station.”

After some banter about the game Risk and people who play it on a board versus people who play it on the computer, they play “Headless One,” a song I haven’t heard them play in a long time. For “Legal Age Life,” it’s like a fun folk party. Dave Clark comes up to sing and do a whistle solo. Bidini is on acoustic guitar. And near the end Tim gets to rhyme the line “We ain’t got nothing funny to say no more.” Then he’s back up front with the acoustic guitar for “Palomar.”

They play a lovely “Northern Wish” and then comes the wonderfully weird “Artenings Made of Gold.” The middle section is sung more and more like a children’s song–almost baby voices. I think they even sing “Davy is one, Timmy is two.”

The “digging a hole” section once again sounds like Frank Zappa. And when they get to the Uncle Henry section about the Maple Leafs, they pause and Dave says “could you please rise” and then they sing it like a barbershop quartet. It is such a shame that the video cuts off during this song. The very end has the band do another vocal harmony sans microphone? Bidini says, “A little tribute to Moxy Fruvous.”

Digging a hole sound like Zappa again.. maple leafs could you please rise? Then they “do it again” guitars off for the audience to sing the ned end

They play a boppy “Alomar” which segues somewhat surprisingly into “Onilley’s Strange Dream.”

People start shouting out requests and then someone shouts “play whatever you want!” A person shouts “Saskatchewan” and Dave says “Carte Blanche? we stopped playing that years ago.” When another person requests “Saskatchewan,” Dave says “That was Sakstachewan…part 2.” Dave says they’re going to play two more songs (they actually play 7 more).

Dave talks about the Green Sprouts Music Club and how people have joined from all over the world: Pakistan Australia, Thailand, Africa, Eurasia and Foxtrap, Newfoundland (he says people from Foxtrap are there tonight).

There’s some raging rocking during the middle of “When Winter Comes” but overall the main part is kind of slow. The “blue Canadian winter” is practically whispered.

There are more and more shouts for “Horses,” but they play a great “Shaved Head” instead. And then they play a very folkie “Bread Meat Peas and Rice.” There’s some crazy falsetto singing and they even get the audience to sing in the falsetto.

And then they kind of fly through the end: “A quick no-nonsense” Record Body Count,” then a fast and hectic “Green Sprouts Theme” where Dave shouts “skip the bridge” and then… silence until Bridge and they rock on!

There’s a few notes of “You Are Very Star” and Martin says “This is sort of an anthem, this one,” but they play a crazy fast “P.R.O.D.” They play a verse and then segue back to the “Green Sprouts Theme” and then they play it slower and Dave says “I’m sleepy guys” and they start playing slower and slower saying “1 2 3 and 4” and it slowly segues into the lullaby “You Are Very Star.” People are still shouting requests and yes the guy who is still shouting for “Horses” should know better. For Martin is playing a lovely acoustic guitar outro.

This is another great set and is, as far as I can tell the final show (at least on the website) with Dave Clark on drums.

[READ: June 20, 2017] “The Hardworking Immigrant Who Made Good”

This issue has a section of essays called “On the Job,” written by several different authors.

Sharma was going to Harvard law school, so he did what many of his fellow students did–he applied at banks for jobs. (more…)

Two years ago, I went to see Kiss in Scranton. I had seen them a few times by then, and since Paul’s voice sounded pretty bad, I didn’t think I’d go again. But I love hanging out with my friend Matt and don’t get to see him enough, so when he invited me up for this year’s extravaganza, I decided what the hell. And it turned out to be a very good show indeed.

The first opening act was a band called Dead Daisies. Last time, they had an opening act that I didn’t investigate at all. But this year, I had my phone out and figured that Dead Daisies was a local Scranton band, and I’d see if I could find anything about them.

Well, it turns out that Dead Daisies is from Australia and that the lead singer, Jon Stevens, was the guy who sang for INXS after Michael Hutchence killed himself (but before they did the reality show to find a new singer). I never heard INXS in that version, but the way he was singing for this band, I can’t even begin to imagine him as a good fit. Because he has a big old powerful voice and sings in a very un-Hutchence way.

When they first came out I was kind of unimpressed. The first song sounded a ton like AC/DC. And the second song sounded like Bad Company. As it turns out the band is a kind of retro rock band, with connections to Guns N Roses (guitarist Richard Fortus has played with GnR and Dizzy Reed plays keyboards for GnR). And it turns out that Slash co-wrote their song “Lock ‘n’ Load.” The other guys in the band are Marco Mendoza on bass (he’s played with Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake and many others) and David Lowy on guitar. (more…)

I had never heard of this band until I saw the song mentioned in the article. The song is impossibly fast with speeding guitars, super fast (inhuman) drums and an indecipherable growl as vocal. In other words, a typical cookie monster metal song. And yet, there is a lot more to it and, indeed it took me several listens before I could even figure out what was happening here, by which time I had really fallen for the song.

There’s a middle section which is just as punishing and fast but which is basically an instrumental break–not for showing off exactly but for showcasing more than the bands pummel. It has a short guitar solo followed by a faster more traditional solo (each for one measure, each in a different ear). Then the tempo picks up for an extended instrumental section. The melody is slightly more sinister, but it sounds great. There’s even a (very short) bass solo that sticks out as a totally unexpected (and fun) surprise.

Then the growls come back in, staying with the new melody. The vocals are so low and growly that they are almost another distorted instrument rather than a voice.

After that there’s a lengthy proper guitar solo. As the song comes to a close, it repeats some previous sections before suddenly halting. It’s quite a trip. And it definitely makes me want to hear more from them (whatever their name means).

[READ: April 14, 2014] “Destroy Your Safe and Happy Lives”

Robbins, who is a poet, but about whom I know little else, takes us on a sort of literary tour of heavy metal. His tone is interesting–he is clearly into metal, like in a big way (at the end of the article he talks about taking his writing students to see Converge (although he doesn’t exactly say why)), but he’s also not afraid to make fun of the preposterousness of, well, most of the bands–even the ones he likes. It’s a kind of warts and all appreciation for what metal is and isn’t. many people have written about metal from many different angles, so there’s not a lot “new” here, but it is interesting to hear the different bands discussed in such a thoughtful (and not just in a fanboy) way.

His first footnote is interesting both for metal followers and metal disdainers: “Genre classification doesn’t interest me. Listen to Poison Idea’s Feel the Darkness followed by Repulsion’s Horrified and tell me the main difference between hardcore punk and metal isn’t that one has a bullshit positive message and one has a bullshit negative message.”

But since Robbins is a poet, he is interested in metal’s connection to poetry. And in the article he cites William Blake (of course), but also Rilke and John Ashbery and (naturally) Milton’s Paradise Lost, as well as Shelley, Lord Byron and Charles Baudelaire. He talks about them not because they are cool poets, but because they have also talked about because of metal’s “most familiar trope…duh, Satanism, which might be silly–okay, its’ definitely silly, but has a distinguished literary pedigree”. Besides, he notes that Satan has the best lines in Paradise Lost (and I note that just as Judas has the best songs in Jesus Christ Superstar).

But sometimes this Satanism turns into a form of paganism which then turns into nature worship. From Voivod’s “Killing Technology” to black metal’s romanticism of nature (sometimes to crazy extremes–but that’s what a band needs to do to stand out sometimes). Metal is all about the dark and primordial, a”rebuke to our soft lives.”

I used to keep a list of songs and albums that I would try to find. On this list was a single or a B-Side by Serena Maneesh. I’ve lost the list, but someone just donated their debut album to our library. So I’m excited to check it out. In the meantime, I found the video for this track so I’ll start there.

For years people waited for the follow up to My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. And if David Shields ever does release a disc under that name again, it will be more scrutinized than Chinese Democracy (and possibly less inspired).

So, why not let someone else take up the reigns of shoegazing music some fifteen years later.

This track displays many traits that made MBV so great. It opens with a slightly distorted female vocalist. She starts singing before a throbbing bass and noisy, distorted (seemingly backwards) guitars bring in a wall of noise. But that wall only lasts for a short time before it breaks away and the song builds again, slowly, with more and more parts (the video shows a violin although I can’t hear it).

And then about half way through the song it does what MBV always made me do, pick up my head and go, yes, this is great. A mildly distorted amazingly catchy bridge peeks out through the noise and grabs on to you. Then more noise and a little backwards vocals and its over.

Other reviews of the album suggest that this isn’t the only kind of music they play, that they are also heavier and darker; I’m looking forward to the rest of the disc. First impressions (five years late) are very good here. Check it out here.

[READ: June 25, 2010] A Reader’s Guide

Despite my fondness for Infinite Jest, I had not read any of the supplementary books about it. I’d heard of them, of course, but I didn’t feel compelled to get any of them. Then I saw that this one was very cheap. And I decided to get Elegant Complexity while I was at it (a few cents to the Fantods). Complexity is a big honking book, and I don’t have time for it right now, but this reader’s guide is very short and a very quick read.

I had an idea of what to expect from the book, but I didn’t really know who the intended audience was. So, I was very surprised to see the way it was set up. The first chapter is a biographical account of DFW including his place in the new writers anti-ironic camp. It was a good summary but nothing new, and I worried about what I had just bought. (more…)